You're the Inspiration

I was delighted by the bounty of today's mail: a package and two fat letters, all from girlfriends who live states away. But the most exciting one was from a friend I've not seen since my son was an infant. We've touched base off and on through the years via email, but real letters means something, just like a phone call or an actual face-to-face visit. And I was delighted to get one of the three from her. It was multiple pages, catching me up on 6+ years of life, which has taken her from South Carolina to Georgia to Virginia, wow! I was impressed and cruising happily along through her letter when I came to the line, "You are an inspiration to me all the time, how you are able to accomplish so much being a single mom and an artist."

This letter comes on the heels of multiple emails loaded with praise of an art-writing collaborative show I participated in and attended a reception for on Friday night. And in the middle of introducing one friend to another at a poetry reading Sunday, the friend I've known longer referred to me (to the other friend who has not had the pleasure of knowing me quite as long) as a 'catalyst'. He'd mentioned to her that I talked him into participating in an event. She basically warned him to get used to that. "She's a catalyst," she said. I know it was a compliment, but it comes on the heels of the most unproductive summer I've ever spent since I began teaching 8 years ago. I smiled, then left, thinking, "I need to get something accomplished before summer ends."

But my interests have shifted, I've been exploring new art mediums and creative philosophies and ideas about writing, living, parenting, not to mention basically making over my home, my vehicle, my clothes, and myself. And still somehow it doesn't feel I'm doing enough. I've always battled this predicament. I once had a mantra on my mirror that said, basically, "While you're goofing off, someone else is working hard, and they'll get the prize." But what prize is that, really?

In my den there is a basket full of yarn that almost matches the ridiculously gigantic bowl of yarn on the desk in my bedroom. I love the look of them both, they inspire me with their colors and textures. I have a million ideas in my head for how I'll use the skiens. Books of patterns (which I can oddly follow the logistics of despite not being able to balance my checkbook without breaking into a cold sweat) are my favorite reading material these days. One of the blessings of having a brain that can derail with the slightest provocation is the ability to bounce between projects, ideas, drama, peace, moments I'm in and the moments I'd like to be in. One of the blessings of knitting is that it is a moving meditation, which is good for me because it's the only meditation I'm able to do for more that 37 seconds at a time. I can knit for hours, but I'm always amazed when I actually finish a project. Somehow I never see that far into the future when I'm casting on. I don't see the finished project in my head, I only see the steps of the pattern, the stage I'm in, the colors and textures and how it's coming together. Knitting, I'm in the moment, because I can't be anywhere else. When I'm too busy to sit and knit, I'm passing by my baskets full of yarn, thinking of what I'll begin next, of what I can yarn bomb and winter sweaters and scarves and hats and what on earth can be knit for young boys obsessed with style. I'm even thinking of asking a friend who is handly with tools if he'll build me a loom so I can finally indulge my dreams of weaving, which I've been slow to explore due to lack of, well...a loom.

My mind is always working, and as a result, usually I'm always doing.

Only this summer...not so much. This has been my summer of dreaming.

If I'm an inspiration, a catalyst, some one others might actually look up to, then I need to get busy doing, well, something that could merit such high praise. But all I want to do, really, is touch these natural fibers, work them together, blend them to make something beautiful. I want to touch them with the same reverence I have when touching the earth, with a mixture of love and wonder akin to what I feel for seeds and the way they hold life, unaware. Like alchemists of old, I want to take the simplest of materials and use them to create something that, without me, would never have been.

Which is what a dream is, really...something that, no matter how simple or profound,without us, will never be. Like seeds, we hold life unaware.

Knit one, purl two, knit one, purl two, yarn over, knit one...I'm lost in the moment, everything else falling slowly away. Hurt feelings, they pass with each stitch.

For a second my mind wanders, but I shake my head and bring my thoughts back to my needles.

This has been my summer of dreaming.

Prey

Earlier this week, I got a call from an organization I volunteer with to pick up an injured hawk and deliver it to a rehabilitation center. I told my son to quickly get dressed. "We've got to help a hawk that's been hurt," I explained. He moved fast.

My son is my partner in crime for all things, mainly because I have no choice but to haul him along on all of my adventures. There is a distinct absence in my life of people chomping at the bit to tend my son so I can have adventures on on my own; I’ve not been to the grocery store alone since he was born, and I rarely ever make it out to Starbucks for a solo coffee. But after seven and a half years, I have grown accustomed to it. I like thinking of how his life, personality, and experiences are being shaped by being my constant companion and listening to writers, artists, and poets discuss their passions; seeing wild animals in the wild instead of on Animal Planet;  hearing hushed conversations about life's realities between my friends and I at kitchen tables (this is tall talk, go play) ; by watching me win, lose, succeed and fail, but always, always try. The older my child gets the more I reflect upon my own memories from childhood, and I feel on display to him somehow…everything I’m doing now he’ll remember, just as I remember my own mother, sitting around the kitchen table with my aunts, drinking coffee, giving one another permanents, and talking about someone’s surgery, divorce, or who was having a  baby.

The men, on the other hand, were always outside, and that’s where I usually ended up. They were loud and their laughter was prefaced by expletives that felt dangerous on my tongue. I saved the words for later, when I was alone in the woods, and could say them out loud without reprimand. The men caroused outside the main houses, always in shops or sheds, lords of grills and pots of hash, denizens of poker games at card tables without chairs, sitting on 40 gallon drums or large engines turned on their side. I’d always inevitably be drawn away from the kitchen table female chatter and the mindless girl-play of my cousins to the backyard where the men were, because they always seemed to be having so much more fun. There was always a smoky haze around them from grills, cigarettes and cigars; it clung to their hair and clothes; it followed my father down the hall when he came in for the night and became a scent I still associate with all things masculine. I can remember, as a child, preferring to be where they were, even if I was merely hiding out somewhere unseen, listening.

I have very few memories from childhood that include men and women being present in the same room; this was primarily reserved for solemn occasions, like funerals or hospital visits. Inside, the men seemed larger than life somehow. Like animals in a cage, they paced and cleared their throats. They bumped into things and thier boots made scuff marks on slick linoleum. They'd shoot outside the first chance they got while the women rolled their eyes and said, “Good riddance.” And this segregation of the sexes makes perfect sense in the South, a place where men and women really have precious little, if anything, in common. So it’s funny, now, me always having my son in tow. Were we a typical Southern family, he’d be at the age where he’d begin to spend most of his time with men, sitting around smoky grills, practicing swearing (don’t you go saying that ‘round your Mama now, yah 'ear?) and learning how to be a man in the South, which is a unique lesson, for I’m not sure anything like Southern men exists outside the Mason-Dixon line and Animal Planet reality shows. But my son’s been on my heels alone since he could walk, so it stands to reason he will end up being just like me…I thought.

Last week, I took him with me to the salon, and he asked for a haircut as well. I was hesitant; I love his long curls, and have only trimmed his hair 4 times in 7.5 years. But then I remembered my philosophy on parenting (which is basically to just do what makes sense to me) and I told him okay. I gave him complete freedom of choice. He took a book of hairstyles to the chair and picked one out without showing me. I watched his curls fall to the floor in horror, and I nearly cried out when I heard the trimmers. When he came bounding up to me, he was another child. I was astonished. He’d chosen a typical short cut, nothing trendy, no faux-hawks or surfer flips like I was expecting. In the car on the way home later, he announced proudly, “I want to have short hair from now on because men are supposed to wear short hair.”

“Really?” I asked.

He nodded, adding, “And watch football.”

The day before the salon trip, he’d pitched a fit in a store for a Clemson shirt. I bought it, because it was a resale shop and the shirt was only $2, but I was surprised he wanted it so intently. While he has a natural agility and stamina that screams ‘high school star,’ his only experience with watching any sport, ever, has been a few brief glimpsing of football games at a friend’s house. I did not grow up around men who stayed inside and watched sports, save for the occasional Nascar race, which was usually listened to on the radio around the grill rather than watched on television. Guys who were into sports were foreign to me. They were the boys who ruled the schools, who elbowed and disregarded you in the halls when their friends were around but told you deep secrets about their plastic girlfriends and alcoholic fathers during study hall when no one was paying attention. I could hardly see my child fitting into the mold that all the star athletes of my alma mater seemed to pop out of, clad in thier Clemson shirts with hair that never touched thier ears.

“I’m gonna play football, too, when I’m bigger,” he says. “And baseball. Boys do that.”

Lord.

Two nights ago, we found a mourning dove that had been injured by a cat. I held it in my hands while he ran inside and got a box and a blanket. We settled the dove in safely. My son didn’t hover as some children might; this is not an unfamiliar experience. He knew the animal was in shock and needed nothing at the moment but a calm, safe place, just as he knew not to even touch the box the hawk was secured inside of, lest he risk losing a finger. The next morning, we carefully carried the box outside and opened it. I’d fully expected the bird to fly out; the injury did not seem to be severe. When it didn’t, I carefully lifted it and held it in my hands, where it sat, motionless, until it heard the soft, low cooing of another dove. She then stood and opened her wings, and that’s when I noticed the odd angle of the right one. She couldn’t - and possibly never again will – fly. I gently placed her back in the box and called the same wildlife center where we’d taken the hawk.

“Why can’t we just let the vet fix her wing and keep her, mom?” My son asked in the car. I have known people who did keep doves or other wild animals they’d found as pets, but this simply wasn’t an act I was going to put my stamp of approval on.

 “No,” I said. “It wouldn’t be right, or fair to the bird.” And that it's okay to tame the wild is not a lesson I’m going to teach you, I thought. Truth is, there was something similar about the idea of keeping the bird as a pet and my own internal reaction when my son announced his desire to be an short-haired athlete. What flashed through my mind, at that moment, were my own memories of obnoxious high school superstars, and the idea of my son being like them made me cringe. I had, until this week, been operating under the misconception that he would be like me, that as a teen he’d want to wear long floppy hair, t-shirts with the logos of Indie bands and cartoons no one has ever heard of, and the only sport a sport he’d partake in would be riding skateboards he’d painted himself. But no…he wants his hair cut so close that it doesn’t need to be brushed and prefers football shirts with jeans and plain sneakers to anything I pick out. In his own words, he wants to be 'just like all the other boys'. The child whose mother would freely allow him to express his individuality in his appearance and not bat an eye chooses instead to blend in with the crowd.

I could not have predicted this any more than my own mother could have predicted that, during family gatherings, I would refuse to stay inside playing dolls under the kitchen table with my cousins like a proper little girl. So be it; I bless my child with the freedom to be the person he chooses to be.

I wouldn’t dream of caging a dove.

The Owl in the Window

I’m having a discussion with a friend about moving. It’s an age-old discussion, this talk of relocation. We both know we need to do it, and for pretty much the same reasons - we love our homes, are happy with the daily routines in our lives, and adore the people we are close to...but we don't really fit in. We both also understand the concept of proper timing, however, and so we both wait. I’m not sure why. We talk about this, too.

As we talk, my eyes drift to a small carved wooden owl sitting in the window. It has been there for many years, but before it sat in my window, it sat in the window of The Medicine Man, an art gallery, bookstore, and so much more on the Cherokee Indian Reservation in Western North Carolina.

“I just know this,” I say, looking at the owl. “Where ever I go, there must be mountains.”

The Medicine Man is my favorite shop on the reservation; there is a history there between it and me. I grew up traveling the lengths of the Great Smoky Mountains (I was 12 the first time I was even taken to a beach). As a teenager and into adulthood, I would consider the Cherokee Reservation my second home, traveling there with my family for powwows and with my friends for spontaneous daytrips as often as I could. The Medicine Man was strategically located beside The Drama Inn, a hotel set on the banks of the Oconaluftee River and conveniently located across the street from the ceremonial grounds. It was the perfect place to stay, and the only place I can ever recall staying.
I fell in love the first time I ever set foot in The Medicine Man. It’s a store far removed from the commercial hype and rubber eagles (Made-In-China souvenir Indian merchandise) that seem to drown the entire length of Hwy. 441. It’s authentic, this shop. The artists and craftspeople are local, and often popped in to drop off new works while I was there. The now-famous Cherokee artist and illustrator, Murv Jacob, was there once with prints of new work. My family struck up a conversation with him about my art ambitions; he encouraged me and gave me two signed prints, which I still have and display in my home.

When I was 16, I bought supplies at The Medicine Man to began a large beadwork image of a hawk swooping down. It was an ambitious project, for beading was a skill I'd taught myself. After a while I put it away. Years later I would buy supplies there once more and complete the piece while sitting outside The Drama Inn, listening to a powwow raging long into the night. The beaded hawk is now part of my son’s dance regalia. It’s fitting, considering he’s named for the bird, and it’s a testament to how little we really know, when we begin something, where it will end up.

It is the same with us; we don't always know where we'll end up either. But love of the mountains is in my blood, the sight of them awakens a part of me that seems to go deeper than memory. The Great Smokey Mountains were home to my ancestors until 'The Removal', more popularly known as “The Trail of Tears”. Of course, to the US Army at the time, it was considered ‘The Relocation,’ which sounds completely wrong to my ears. Relocation implies consent. Relocation is what my friend and I discuss. Relocation is what I did when I left those beloved mountains and spent a few years trying on city life in Detroit. No, what happened to my ancestors was not a relocation, it was a removal, just another of the ‘you’re out and we’re in’ takeovers in the name of progress, so common at that time.

And while the government intended for the Cherokee to stay out, a greater force than man intended for them to be there. And so, in time to come, my ancestors found their way back home. My grandmother was born in the same mountain region of Tennessee as Chota, capital city of the Cherokee Nation back when there was a nation instead of Eastern and Western bands. When I left this area and headed north, bubbling over with excitement about the relocation I was undertaking, I was prepared to miss my friends. I was prepared to miss my family. But I was not prepared for the tremendous feeling of loss that would overtake me as I drove through the Great Smokies and realized I was about to put nearly a thousand miles between myself and these mountians. When I could only see them in my rearview mirror, I knew I was heading in the wrong direction. But I was in my early 20s, too young to realize what life, what the mountains, and what my ancestors were trying to tell me in that moment. I kept driving.

Now I know better.

Putting a thousand miles between myself and the Cherokee reservation ended family trips to powwows and the daytrips to roam the mountains. It was the end of late summer Saturdays afternoons donning bells to ward off bears and foraging for blueberries. It was the end of sitting outside The Drama Inn and sipping coffee as the sun crested Rattlesnake Mountain. It was the end of long visits with friends at their mountain homes, watching thunderstorms and eating bean bread and listening to tales. It was the end of my powwow dancing days, it was the end of skipping in the door of The Medicine Man, pausing momentarily to look at the wooden owl statue in the window, then gazing at the art inside and wondering if I would ever have my own work represented there.

I lasted 4.5 years away. And while I had some fun, truth is, the city life I tried on didn't really fit. Like my ancestors, I came back. I have a million excuses as to why, but there is only one truth: Where ever I go, there must be mountains.

Now it is my son and I who take trips to the reservation for powwows, although there aren’t nearly as many now as there were 20 years ago. We stay at The Drama Inn and play in the Oconaluftee River. As he sleeps, I sit outside and sip coffee as the sun crests Rattlesnake Mountain. This summer, I’ll slip a bell around his neck and take him to pick blueberries on The Shining Rock Trail. The friends I had there on the reservation have grown, married, divorced, moved away...I tell my son the tales now. I’d hoped he’d dance  like me, and for two years, he did. But then one day, as I was dressing him in his regalia, he said, “Mama, I don’t want to dance. I just want to watch the pow wow and hear the drums.” So be it. Like our ancestors, his spirit is strong. I won’t fight it. Dancing must come of one’s own free will; it can’t be forced. Perhaps he will go back to it one day. Perhaps I will as well.

The thing about relocating is that while you can always return, you can never really go back. My years growing up with Cherokee as a second home are some of the most precious memories I have of being with my family. But this is a time to be in the now, not in the past. Like the Oconaluftee River, life changes with each breeze, each drop of rain, each rising and setting of the sun. We can return to a place, but never to a time. This is what my ancestors discovered when they snuck back into their homelands; this is what I know now as well.

A few years ago, in a beautiful coming of full circle in my life, I finally had several art pieces placed for sale in The Medicine Man. It was a moment I can hardly describe, knowing my work belonged there, just like the work of Murv Jacob and the other artists I’d spent years admiring. When I exited the shop that day, I looked out across the street at the ceremonial grounds and remembered dancing there so many times, and seeing my son dance there as well. I turned and looked at the store, at the wooden owl staring back at me from the window. Maybe it was the same one that had always been there, or maybe the artist just made a new one when one sold. I do not know. But I went back a few weeks later and bought that owl. It was my sole purpose for the trip that day; I wanted - or maybe I needed - to place him in the window of my home. I wanted to see it every day and be reminded of The Medicine Man; of the Reservation; of the Great Smoky Mountains; of my ancestors who refused to stay away; of my memories of growing up; of the difference between removal and relocation.

In the creek behind my home that evening, I tossed in a pebble. Ripples formed, spread, then faded away. Still they were there, as I was there. I am now here, but my thoughts dance daily with the word relocation. When, where and how remain unseen. I know only this: The owl goes with me, to sit in the window. And where ever we go, there must be mountains.

Visit The Medicine Man Gallery online at http://medicinemancrafts.com/

*** Sadly, I can not credit the artist who made the owl, there is no name on the bottom, only a cryptic symbol. I'm sure the owner of The Medicine Man knows, however, and when I return to the reservation in a few weeks, I'll ask and post it here.
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Finding Wish Bear

“Mama! I can’t find Wish Bear.”


It’s the tone, more than the words, that capture my complete attention. I hear ‘Mama!’ - usually followed by a request of some sort– all throughout the day, and, like any apt parent, I can easily gauge the speed at which I need to respond by the sound of my child’s voice more than by the actual words he is using.

In this case, I responded immediately, but rather typically – “Have you looked under the bed? In the closet? In your bookbag? In your toybox?” My list went on and grew to include looking under MY bed, in MY closet, under the car seats, behind the couch, in the board game chest, in the linen closet….and I looked again in all the places he’d already looked before. That little pale green bear had, for all practical purposes, simply vanished.

Has my child lost things before? On occasion, yes. There was the little die-cast Tonka bulldozer that he left in a buggy at Wal-Mart, never to be seen again. And the big Fisher Price boat with a deck and a plank that he left by the creek one evening, an evening it would later rain so hard the creek would swell and wash the boat away forever. The soft black bathrobe he loved that inexplicably disappeared on a vacation to the mountains…these are small losses, really. These were shrug-your-shoulders, ‘Oh well’ kind of things, situations I tried to use to teach my child responsibility for his things.

But Wish Bear being lost was an entirely different ball game. You see, I was lucky enough to have a mother who saved most of my favorite toys from childhood. So when my son was born, some of his first toys were the small, moveable Care Bear dolls I’d had growing up. In time, I managed to find a few Care Bear VHS tapes, books, and other assorted items, including a small stuffed Wish Bear that was, upon receipt, firmly instituted as my son’s very favorite toy.

And who wouldn’t love Wish Bear? She’s got not only a pet star named Twinkers who accompanies her everywhere, but the power to grant wishes, as long as they are from the heart and for the good of everyone. Wish Bear went everywhere with us, from the market to the mountains; on every overnight trip; on the planes when we flew abroad; tightly clutched in his arms when he had his tonsils removed. Wish Bear was his comfort during sickness or sadness, a familiar, favorite friend. It was a toy I wanted to keep, to save along with the tiny die-cast blue car he loved to hold in his hand as a toddler; the gown he wore as an infant; the onesies I tie-dyed for him and the set of books we used to come home and read every day. As a single parent who works 40+ hours a week outside of the home at one job while still pursuing dreams of another, I don’t take time to be overly sentimental. Life moves in a blur far too often…but Wish Bear was a constant, a staple, a fixture of my son’s childhood, which is passing by too quickly for my own comfort.

And she was gone. Clearly. I felt a little sick. Not just because Wish Bear was missing, but because a few days before we’d taken loads of items to the donation box at the thrift store. I mean loads of stuff. It’d felt so good to get rid of it, then…but all I could think now was that through some tragic oversight, Wish Bear had found her way into one of those boxes. Nothing else made sense. We had looked everywhere.

I put the thought out of my head, a skill I’ve mastered, and we went to run errands. We picked up my friend’s daughter and went to visit another friend and her daughter at the lake. We found caterpillars and the kids swam. We came home. My son played outside. I planted Black-eyed Susans, drank coffee, and tended my flowerbeds. But when bed-time came, he resumed his hopeless search. A long time later, my son, who already refuses to walk into school with me in the morning, who already insists on picking out his own clothes so he can look ‘cool’, who is already beginning that necessary stage of separation from mom that will last, I know, for the next few decades at least, looked up at me with tears in his eyes.

“I give up,” he said. “Wish Bear is just gone.”

And what could I say? Keep looking? There was no place left to look. He climbed into bed without complaint, and I told him goodnight. I had so many things waiting, after all. So many projects I needed to tackle, a to-do list longer than most people’s weekly agendas. But I couldn’t focus. I had to find that bear.

Amazing how children rearrange and reinvent our priorities for us. I dismissed all of the plans I had and spent my solo evening hours scouring the house yet again, looking in unimaginable places, possessed with a determination to find that Wish Bear. She could not be gone. She represented an entire portion of my son’s young life. And while he would recover from the loss of her, I wasn’t so sure that I would, and it surprised me to realize how desperately I wanted, or needed, to find that little stuffed animal.

And then I did. I found her wedged between a large chest and a small storage bin, in a small space obscured by the drawing tablet propped up beside it. How she came to rest there will forever be a mystery. All I know is this: I’ve accomplished many things in my life, things that have brought me great delight, seemed very impressive, given me monetary rewards or fleeting moments of regional fame. But nothing, I swear, has ever equaled the feeling of being able to place that small stuffed bear into my son’s arms. Nothing.

Parenting isn’t an easy road to begin with. Parenting solo takes the already not-easy road and fills it full of mountains and storms and twists and bends that seem, at times, impossible to navigate. But then, there are these fleeting moments when all is right with the world. Moments when you know you’ve done something spectacularly good for your child, moments when you know, without a doubt, that you have fulfilled a purpose, that you are a hero to someone. No matter how tough you think you are, these moments find their way beneath all of your guards, softening the edges life has hardened around you, enabling you to feel more joy than you ever thought was possible.

Perhaps Wish Bear really does grant wishes after all…

The Greatest Show on Earth

My great-aunt Dot, who died before I was born, ran away with the circus in the mid-1930s. She was 15 years old and, orphaned as a very young child, had lived most of her life with my grandmother and great-uncle at Harris and Chilhowee Children’s Home in Tennessee. She would be hunted down and made to return a few months later, having changed her given name from Dorothy Beulah to Dorothy Grey, and bearing a tattoo of a Thunderbird on her left upper arm – very bold for moves for a young woman of that time period.

She resumed her life there at Harris and Chilhowee, finished school, and would later marry and have 4 children. She lived out the remainder of her days in Upstate South Carolina, and what stories of adventure she had during her time with the circus would remain hers and hers alone. What I consider fascinating others considered a rash youthful folly, and she didn’t discuss running away with the circus among anyone in her immediate or extended family.

I wish she had.

The story of Aunt Dot was the basis for the history of the character Nan in my book, The Absence of Anyone Else. I tried to imagine a young teenage girl, relatively happy in her day-to-day life, being swept up by the charisma and charm of a visiting circus, (or, as happens in my story, a handsome blonde boy who travels with a visiting circus), and walking away from her world to be a part of someone else’s. Talk about boldness. This was a time period, remember, where women who cut their hair and wore pants were still considered radicals in the South.

In faded family photos, Dot is dark-eyed and intense, her black hair casually arranged in the style of the day, her tattoo covered by the modest clothing of a rural Southern wife. She could be any typical woman of the era…But she wasn’t. She had a fantastic story, even if she kept it to herself.

I, too, have walked away from my world to be part of someone else’s. I’ve changed my name, then changed it back. I’ve done many things that others might consider to be follies. Some stories I’ve shared. Some I’ve kept sacred to me, as Dot did hers. She is one relative I’ve always felt a kinship to, even though I never knew her. There was something about the story of her ‘youthful folly’ that always spoke to me, that even as a child, I understood. When it became too much to merely wonder about, I bought a book of old circus photos from the early 20th century, and I’d often look at it and wonder about her. Who did she become, at the tender age of 15, when she left Dorothy Beulah behind and became Dorothy Grey? And what part of Dorothy Grey was still present in those blazing dark eyes that stared off somewhere just beyond the photographer’s lens?

And then, this weekend…I actually went to a circus. I took my son to see Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey’s ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’. It was the first circus for both of us, and I was, for all practical purposes, blown away. Of course, a circus of the 1930s would have been an entirely different show than what we saw, but I’m sure it would have been just as amazing for that period of time, for a young girl bored in a group home, wanting something more than just an average, typical life. Even if that something more came with risks. Caught up in the show on Friday, I’d have grabbed up my son and joined them too, in that moment, just to be a part of the magic. Of course it isn’t so easy these days. One cannot simply take the outstretched hand of another, leap up onto the train, and be a part of circus, which explains why I’m still here…that and the fact that, for all my many talents, I’m just not a performer.

However, there is one important thing from Dot’s story that I know to be true, and that is that we can watch the greatest shows on earth from our seats, but we experience nothing if we simply remain spectators, watching trains pass by on their way to somewhere else when the show is over. Without taking risks, without being bold, we’re only spectators, standing on the sidelines, watching others take risks and applauding on cue.

For some people, this is enough, as the proliferation of television watching, cable companies, satellite varieties and reality shows prove.

For Dot, it wasn't. And for me, it will never be.

It’s a sunny day, and I’ll head to the park soon…but expect an artistic interpretation of the circus from Pan Pan Studios. What can I say? It’s in my blood…

Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey’s The Greatest Show on Earth is worth every penny. Follow the link below for show information in your area: http://www.ringling.com/

The Earth is not Round

The Earth is not Round

The earth is not round. It is

all around.

The hawk soars above you.
Try as you might

you can't do what he does. You

will never see as he sees.

You can fly, yes, and you can

look down from on high

but it's different from the window of a plane,

the top of a tower. These are only

attempts to reach

the type of freedom

he was born with.

But don't envy the hawk. Better to

cast your hand

into the soil. This you can do.

The earth is cool

rich

deep. It is here

that you can plant

something.

It is here

where you can nurture

the tiny seed into

a vine that runs across

carefully manicured lawns

like a wild woman,

succulent and beautiful,

making you wonder why anyone ever thought

that a patch of earth

would look better tame.

No, don't envy the hawk.

His wings grow tired from soaring

and hunting

...always hunting. Rather

remember that you, too, can fly

but he can only drag

a talon through the dirt. He can't

plant seeds
that bear fruit.

From above

he watches you

cast seeds into the womb of the earth.

Always hunting,

he watches

as your garden grows.

She Walks Two Worlds, painting by Amy L. Alley
The Earth is not Round copyrighted 2012 by Amy L. Alley

Mama Gratitude

There is an art reception that I need to get to, it’s just a few minutes from now and I’m a long way from being ready.


There is, upon arriving home after a long day, the matter that my son wants to check on his guinea pig, Finn, before we head out. Seven-year-olds do not always understand the concept of prior engagements or commitments to be certain places at certain times. They do, however, understand being away from something you love all day and wanting to reconnect with it.

But…my art is on display, so I really need to be there. I also need to do laundry, and so to give my son a few more minutes with Finn, I pull clothes from the dryer (where they have been since last night) and begin folding them. There is also the matter of snacks. My child is hungry and I never know exactly what refreshments will be provided at these artistic functions. I promise to get a snack together as soon as I’m done with the clothes, and he reminds me that Finn also needs a snack.

The reception begins at 6pm and it’s in another town. I did not get home until almost 5, because I stopped off after work for a quick coffee with a friend while my son was taking part in an afterschool program. That brief stop, little more than an hour, is the only ‘grown up’ (as in without child) time I will have for the entire week. I’m used to them being rare, but try to fit them in whenever I can, even if it means putting me behind schedule the rest of the evening. The wonderfully stimulating conversation I had with my friend, which centered primarily on yoga and intentions for the new year, is on my mind as I finish folding clothes, throw a new load in, make the snack for my child, and wash lettuce leaves for Finn. Upstairs, I remind my son to feed his fish and suddenly, randomly remember that, in my haste to get to my coffee date, I forgot to post my lesson plans for next week before leaving work. Dang.

No time to worry about that now. I look down at my clothes. I wore this ensemble to work and have had it on since 6am, but I think it will pass for the reception. It will have to, there simply isn’t time to change. My son’s clothes…eh, no. I take a quick look at my hair and makeup, splash on some patchouli, and grab a new shirt for him. I brush his hair while he’s eating his snack, and change his clothes in the kitchen. We hit the road with perfect timing, and enter the reception fashionably late.

And it’s a wonderful event, full of friends, art, music, good food, better coffee, and laughter. But after an hour, my child is bored, wandering, looking up at me with tired eyes that remind me 7:30 is just a half-hour away from 8pm, his usual bedtime, even on weekends. In addition, he reminds me that it’s Friday, which is our movie night, and we’re supposed to watch Ninja Turtles.

***

In another life, back when I had the time, freedom, and desire to be petit bourgeois, I’d have stayed at events like this all night. And I’d have more lined up for the next night, and maybe a few speckled throughout the week, and spend hours planning outfits and getting ready. Now…not so much. It isn’t because I have a child, no. The idea that children take from our lives, rather than give, is one that devastates relationships and one I don’t subscribe to. But becoming a mother has changed me, completely, and I like to believe for the better. Because the reality is, everything has it’s time, its place, and it’s occasion to be enjoyed. Would I have liked to spend longer at that reception? A decade ago, yes. But last night, despite the amazing art, wonderful people, and good music, I was actually looking forward to movie night with my son, because I, too, understand being away from something you love all day and wanting to reconnect with it.

A few weeks ago I stumbled across yet another ‘frustrated mother’ essay online, posted on a website that is exists for the purpose of encouraging women, but seems to be turning into just a place for the unhappy to vent. Apparently, there are quite a lot of stay-at-home moms out there who are trying to balance being a stay-at-home mom with pursuing some type of freelance career (usually writing, which seems to be the new hot trend). The feminist in me applauds this as I begin to read the essay. But by the end, the mom in me is just appalled by the writer’s lack of gratitude for what appears to be a pretty cushy life.

Another essay details a woman’s distress over trying to continue her writing career in the midst of parenting two toddlers while her husband works long hours. I’m trying to sympathize, remember what a handful one toddler can be, until she mentions her live-in nanny. Live-in nanny? Really? She is complaining about parenting solo, and yet she has a live-in nanny (which hubby’s long hours obviously pay for). And then another young at-home mom’s essay mulls over long, tedious hours and sleepless night of parenting an infant while watching one’s keyboard get dusty because there simply isn’t enough time to parent the infant, grab sleep when possible, and write. I’m not totally unsympathetic; I remember the days of parenting an infant. I have been there, but here’s the thing: I did all that they are doing, all that parenting , but I did it alone…and while working a full-time, very stressful job outside of the home. And here’s what I’d like to say to these moms who complain without seeming to realize how easy they actually have it: Quit whining.

I have raised my son alone for the last seven years. It was not my intention or desire to, it is just the way it has happened. There was never anyone else in the middle of the night to help tend him, no one to help when he was sick and I was scared, no other parent to lend physical, emotional, or financial support, and certainly no spouse to work long hours so that I might stay at home for the sweet, short duration of my child’s infancy. And unlike many single parents I know, I do not share parenting responsibilities of my child with my own parents. Even if I wanted to, it would be impossible; my mother has a myriad of health issues and my father’s time is consumed in tending to the things that my mother can’t. So I’ve done this – and continue to do it – on my own, wondering what it would have been like for my son and I had things been different, but being grateful, so grateful, always, that I am able to do alone a job that even God intended to be shared by two.

So when I read these venting essays, I’m so stunned by the lack of gratitude these moms seem to have that I can’t even wrap my mind around what they are thinking. Did they not realize that parenting was going consume the majority of their lives? Did they go into motherhood totally delusional about what tending an infant or toddler was like? Did they actually believe a person can tend and infant and simultaneously build a career? But most importantly, don’t they realize that childhood is brief, so brief, and that time for themselves will come again, sooner than they might imagine? In the blink of an eye, afternoons will stretch out endlessly before them, hours and hours to write, paint, do whatever they please without the interruption of ‘Mama’, because their child(ren) have grown wings and taken flight? Don’t they realize how precious these days, these moments, actually are?

And are they not in the least bit grateful to have been afforded in life a partner to raise these children with? One who is intelligent, responsible, and caring enough to spend long days working a job they may not even enjoy in order to support a family which, rare these days, has a mom at home at the helm? I hear the whining loud and clear. What I don’t hear, even once, in their writing is the gratitude.

I’d have given a limb to have not had to take my son to daycare at 8 weeks of age. To not have had to go into work – work! – on an hour of sleep on so many occasions when my baby was still learning the difference between days and nights. To not have counted weekend hours slipping by with tears in my eyes because I knew, come 7am Monday, I’d be turning the babe in my arms over to someone else. It was a searing pain in the heart, this parting, and wasn’t because I wanted to pursue a career. It was because I had to work in order that my child and I could live. There was no one else who was going to do it, no one giving to me the luxury of staying at home or, good heavens, staying at home with a full-time nanny. The light at the end of my tunnel, however, was the fact that, as an educator, I knew that I would always have summer break, winter break, and spring break. These times together, and the knowledge they were coming, got me through those long months of being separated from what I loved most all day.

But the most amazing thing of all is that while I parented alone and worked a full-time job, guess what? I still found time to write. And paint. And learn to knit. And play with my son. And organize art exhibits. And potty train my son. And send out query letters that got answers. And take commissions. And teach my child the alphabet. And make altered clothes out of old clothes so I didn’t have to buy new ones all the time. And have articles published. And teach my son to identify birds by their sounds on long afternoon walks. And get my own column in a magazine. And teach my child to ride a bike and bake bread. And work. Work, work, work…and keep up with bills, the laundry, the house, and still make special events (like movie night and a trip abroad) happen for my child. And plant a garden, and take day trips, and set up an Etsy shop for my art, and do yoga every day, and take my son to swim meets, and work out, and write, and attend art receptions (even if just for an hour), and have fleeting coffees with friends and all day play dates with my son’s friends because that’s just life when you’re a parent. And paint, and knit when I couldn’t paint so I’d still feel creative, and watch my child grow and blossom into an amazing human being, and remember enjoy every minute that I have been blessed to BE…A…MOM.

While I am intensely passionate about my art and very committed to my writing, I know there are at least million artists out there, and a shockingly increasing number of writers popping up every day. But there is only one child that is mine, and he has only one mother. Me. There is, and will never be, a greater calling for me than this. And maybe my experiences in mothering solo have made me, after 7 years, just more unsympathetic to ‘mom whining’ than I’d like to admit. I try not to judge, and to practice love and compassion, but truth is, ingratitude is an attribute I find intolerable. However, a few days ago, I stumbled across a blog by a wonderful young artist-writer-mom, a happy stay-at-homer (they exist! Yaay!) that freelanced in her spare time, not worrying if she wrote every day or even every week, because she knew her husband’s job would pay the bills, and she knew she was blessed to be present for every minute of her young child’s life. WOW. This wise woman, a decade younger than me, basically stated that she “knew her time to pursue her own passions 100% would come back, so she didn’t mind giving her time now to her son because she was so utterly grateful to have the opportunity to be with him full-time in his early life.” I was elevated, thrilled, over-the-moon with her essay. There was a tribe of Mamas like me out there. Kindred Mamas. Grateful Mamas. Happy, creative, child-centered Mamas, who, whether parenting with partners or parenting solo, embraced their blessings, were grateful for every minute with their child(ren), and knew that if you quit whining and practiced gratitude, happiness opened up, even on the difficult days, and you found you simply had more of it than you ever imagined you might.

***

No one is superwoman, least of all me. I have a high energy level and having practiced martial arts rather intensely in my younger years, I’ve learned a thing or two about discipline that help me accomplish what I have in the midst of what seems like chaos to others. But I also make choices that serve me and my child in the now. And, as the young mother I admire so much wrote in her essay, the thing about the activities I step out of, the events I don’t attend in order to parent, is that they will still be there, still happening, when my son no longer wants to spend his Friday nights with me. It’s like a dance that never ends. I’ll step right back into it when the time comes, like I never left, like the whirlwind days of mothering a young child had never even happened.

Something tells me, however, that I’ll miss those whirlwind days of young childhood much more than I’ve ever missed standing around with groups of fashionably dressed people, sipping wine and making intelligent conversation. I’ll miss movie night, hurried snacks, and quality time with guinea pigs more than I’ve ever missed elegant petit fours with people I only know socially. And so I linger in this time now, stealing creative moments and grown-up coffees with dear friends when I can, but cherishing, always cherishing, the now that I have, this fleeting now I’ve been blessed with. There will not likely be, for me, another time that I will ever be the parent of a young child, but there will be infinite chances to write and make art when he is no longer a young child. This present, this now, is once in a lifetime. I don’t wish it away, heavens no…I snag it, grab, and try to hold on.

It hasn’t been easy every step, and I’ve not always been as grateful as I am now. I’d also not recommend solo parenting as an ideal, no matter how fabulously feministic it might seem. It’s hard, damn hard, but so are diamonds, which society treasure and hold in highest esteem as a token of love. I’ve personally no use for diamonds, but I do hold in highest esteem the role I have as a mother, whether society values it or not. Perhaps there are those who would look at my art or my writing and actually consider it a more worthwhile contribution to the world than my child, and for them, I feel compassion… but for myself, I feel only joy.

Mama-whining? No thank you. I have Mama-gratitude. I’m blessed beyond measure…and lucky me, I’m wise enough to know it.